Prime Minister Tony Abbott has announced that Australia is about to join the US in bombing Syria. There is a great deal of speculation about where the idea came from. It had already been floated by Liberal backbencher Dan Tehan who heads the Parliament’s intelligence and security committee. The PM claims the suggestion came from Barack Obama a few weeks ago when they were having a phone conversation. The US president was pressing Australia’s final endorsement of the sovereignty-destroying Trans-Pacific Partnership. Fairfax media reported leaks from senior government sources that Abbott had pestered the US for such an invitation.

RAAF set to join the US in bombing Syria.

The move to bomb Syria by the US and its allies is along the lines of Obama’s 2011 “humanitarian intervention” in Libya which saw the real intended outcome: the toppling of the Gaddafi government. The current intention on Syria is in fact invasion from the air. Military personnel on the ground from the US-Australia invading forces are there to help facilitate regime change by the terrorist forces that have been unleashed and given impetus by those planning the air invasion.

In September 2014, when Abbott announced that the Australian military would be returning to Iraq, he avoided giving a direct answer as to whether Australia would join the US in bombing Syria too.

Regardless of the origins of the idea, Australia’s involvement in yet another US war suits Abbott and the Pentagon.

As the president is claimed to have told Abbott from aboard Air Force One, the Pentagon would look kindly on a decision by the Australian government to extend its military’s bombing operations into Syria.

For Abbott, an extension of the war would also be a major distraction from issues worrying voters as the next federal election approaches. Former independent member for New England, Tony Windsor, spoke for many when he discussed Tony Abbott’s motivations and what they mean for the rest of us during an appearance on ABC TV’s Q&A program last week. “I remember him saying ‘I will do anything to get this job’. So, it was about getting the job. And I’m sure I think we are seeing it being played out now with the possibility of war in Syria. To me, that’s more about keeping the job than actually putting up an argument to take this country to another war,” Windsor said.

Of course, the reasons given for considering the “invitation” to bomb Syria include accounts of IS’s continued military progress and its atrocities. The bombing of Iraq has achieved little in that regard but it has contributed to a crisis of more than three million internally displaced Iraqis.

When asked about the legality of entering Syria against the wishes or the internationally recognised government of President Bashar al-Assad, the PM stated nonsensically: “The terrorists don’t respect the border, so why should we?” he said. So, we follow the lead of the terrorists.

People are starting to see through the “right to protect” camouflage the US usually deploys in these situations. Every country that the US intervenes in to protect “democracy” and “security”, descends into chaos and uncertainty. The only predictable result is that functioning and independently-minded sovereign nations are dismembered and converted into a bunch of warring fiefdoms whose desperation “cries out” for great powers to come in and restore “normality”. The secular government of Syria is a prime candidate for this sort of treatment. Russia and China are bigger challenges but, ultimately, are targets for the same strategy.

The people of the world want peace. They want the redressing of historical injustices and economic progress. They don’t want to be washed up on the shores of foreign countries as refugees. They don’t want imperialist powers determining the course of development of their homelands. Australians must speak up now to prevent our involvement in the next stage of this criminal, illegal aggression.